


a siren, to steal this sailor's heart

by quill_and_parchment



Series: A Sense of Adventure [4]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Bath Houses, Bathing/Washing, Double Life, Extended Scene, F/M, Julian lowkey has a praise kink and you'll never convince me otherwise, Post-Canon, Romance, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, just a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quill_and_parchment/pseuds/quill_and_parchment
Summary: XV. The DevilEsme and Julian use the Countess' baths. Romance ensues."Darling," Julian says gently, with a fond smile, "you are terribly, achingly beautiful. With clothes, or, I'm quite sure, without."
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak, Julian Devorak/Original Female Character(s)
Series: A Sense of Adventure [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820728
Kudos: 13





	a siren, to steal this sailor's heart

**Author's Note:**

> Esme goes to the Masquerade as a blue butterfly!

“It, uh. It’s hot in here, isn’t it?” Steam rises from the bath, filling the room and wafting outside into the cool evening air. Julian is sweating under his costume, and he can gaze at Esmeralda in her shimmering dress no longer. She gets the hint and smiles, reaching up to unbutton his coat and untie his cravat. 

“If you told me before that I could be here with you…” He shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to convey the surrealness he’s feeling, like he’s somewhere he doesn’t belong and yet does.

His coat falls open, cravat hangs loose around his neck. Esme pulls them off him and folds them neatly, nonplussed and domestic about undressing him. “I know what you mean.” Her deft fingers work the buttons on his vest, pluck at the fingers of his gloves and tug gently.

“I doubt that, my dear. After all, you’ve been the Countess’ guest all week. You should be used to this by now.”

"Arms up.” He does so, and sighs in relief when she pulls his loose shirt over his head, sending his hair springing to life. “I am and I’m not. There’s still so much I haven’t seen in this place.” Her eyes roam over bare chest, muscular shoulders and arms, and he quirks an eyebrow and grins, a familiar expression that comes easy.

“Like what you see?”

Esme's eyes meet his, stormy blue-gray, and he could get comfortable in them, melt in them. “Yes. I do.” 

He leans down and kisses her then.

She helps with the boot cords, but is too bashful to reach for the sash around his trousers, and he understands. Save that for another time, perhaps, the two of them alone by candlelight...he stops before the thought can run away from him, mindful of how easily it could show. (She does fold the rest of his clothes, bless her, despite her reluctance.) He spots an alcove in the wall - a rack of transparent bathing robes, and turns down all the colors until he reaches two black and gold ones at the back. He pulls one on, rolls his shoulders and cracks his knuckles to get the last bit of tension out, and sighs.

“This is the life, isn’t it? You can’t get luxury like this on a pirate ship.” The thought is half to himself, half to his lovely audience. He has so many pirate tales to tell her, but they can wait for later. 

A hammered copper tray sits by the edge of the bath, filled to its edges with colorful glass jars. Julian settles down by it, letting his feet dangle into the water, and peruses them. A sniff into a corked one brings nostalgic memories back like a flood; his face lights up, and fully half the bottle goes into the water in his excitement. 

“What’s that?” Esme, from somewhere off to his right. He’s too invested to look up at her, too eager to make this bath perfect.

“Premium bath salts from Nevivon.” A wistful smile touches his lips. “Reminds me of home.” The other bottles are interesting, too - some bladderwrack crystals go in, a hefty splash of a liquid that smells like the ocean at low tide (he doesn’t know why the Countess would have something so rank-smelling, but to his benefit, he supposes), a few shakes of a white powder that smells like fresh-caught fish, and even to his surprise, a splash of chilled liquid that smells of melon. Fresh steam wafts up from the water, pale blue, and the room fills with the scent of the sea.

He does finally look up, and gnaws the corner of his lip. Esme is sitting on a marble bench next to the neat pile of his clothes, still dressed. Her raven hair is undone from its intricate braiding, but that’s all. It’s longer than he had thought (having never seen it this way he could not have deigned to guess its length), and equally lovely unstyled, flowing down to the middle of her back. Her eyes are nervous but warm under her bangs. 

“Is something wrong?” He is suddenly nervous, anxious, wary. “Are you - you don’t have to join me if you don’t want, I - do you not like it?”

But her voice is soft, and calming. “It’s beautiful," and his chest feels light.

He gets up and crosses to her, feet leaving wet prints behind, and sits by her side. “What is it?” His voice is quiet, still a kernel of the fear of rejection in his heart. She’s fidgeting with her hands, and he takes one of them, folds his fingers around hers.

“No, it’s nothing.” Her voice is light, but her head is bowed, looking stubbornly into her lap, hair hiding her face like a curtain. He lets the silence spin out, waits for a proper answer.

Finally she looks up at him, and the look in her eyes is bashful and child-like. “I’ve never undressed in front of you before and it’s making me nervous.” She bites her lip, looks away. “I wish I were as un-self-conscious as you.”

“Ah.” He doesn’t know what to say (it was learned, over the years - one can’t afford to be self-conscious on a pirate ship), but when Esme turns her face away from him, a shadow passing over it, he cups her cheek and turns it back. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, okay? Trust me," but her eyes won’t meet his.

“Darling,” Julian says gently, with a fond smile, “you are terribly, _achingly_ beautiful. With clothes, or, I’m quite sure, without.”

And she finally does look at him, and the look on her face! Eyes sweet and shy, twinkling among the constellations of freckles, a blush painting her cheeks pink, and with her lips parted just so he cannot resist kissing her again and she kisses back, hand resting on his jawline, and his heart soars, pounding.

The hand on his face slides down to his chest; she withdraws from him, eyes open and whispers, “Thank you, Ilya. That means a lot.”

The moment feels as delicate as a spun-sugar sculpture, so he says nothing and instead puts a hand to the nape of her neck (underneath it, hair glossy and soft as silk) and gives her forehead a gentle kiss.

“Um...can you help me with the laces?”

“What? Oh, yes, sorry. I’d love to.” He remembers a second voice in her tent before the Masquerade, doing up the laces, and stands and offers her a hand. She takes it, turning her back to him and sweeping the long sheaf of hair over one shoulder. The ribbon is cleverly hidden amongst the pleats of tulle and silk and sparkling chiffon; it takes him a moment to find the bow at the top, doubly covered by the ruffle that surrounds her shoulders, but then the going is easy. He has to kneel to reach the bottom of the column, stands again and pulls the two sides apart what he thinks is enough for her to step out. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be in the bath.” One last parting kiss to the divot under her ear, and he moves away.

He doesn’t need to test the water, he knows it will be divine, but he does anyway and then steps in, unable to hold back a long, relaxed sigh as he settles on the bench seat. It’s almost like the hot springs in Nevivon...except with a cityscape view and beautiful company. Maybe not like the hot springs much at all, but it smells the same. He closes his eyes, runs his hands through his hair and tips his head back, reveling in feeling the water trickle down his neck, shoulders, spine. 

When he opens them again and looks over his shoulder, he is stunned.

Esmeralda is wrapped in the matching robe, and it leaves nothing to the imagination. Freckled all over on skin slightly tanner than his, a wiry hourglass with a backdrop black as a moonless night. 

_I love you_ , Julian thinks but doesn’t say, and he knows it’s true, for this but also for much more.

She must be a siren. She makes him comfortable, easygoing, truly _happy_ , and she is so beautiful, so she must be a siren, to steal this sailor’s heart so easily.

The remarkable thing is, he feels no sense of foreboding at all. Everything is perfect. This bath is perfect, Esme is perfect, and for once, everything feels right. A bubble of peace in the midst of the deepening danger around them.

He doesn’t need to think to invite her into the bath and give her a warm, welcoming grin. 

“I’d love to,” and she slips in next to him on the bench seat, sighing with relief as the water envelopes her. Her hair pools artfully on the water’s surface like spilled ink, mingling with the flower petals, and again he thinks that she must be a siren, to enchant him so.

“Can’t remember the last time I had a bath this nice.” He props an elbow on the edge, feeling the robe slip off his shoulders, and reaches out to brush his fingertips over her skin. “And...it’s been even longer since I had one with such good company.”

She drops her eyes and smiles, pleased by the compliment, takes his hand and kisses the palm. “You’re too sweet by half.”

He feels he should have a witty remark for this, but does not.

They sit in silence for a long moment, smell of the sea all around them. Finally Julian looks down at her, head nestled into his chest and his arm around her shoulders. “Is the water okay? Do you need anything?” He is eager and willing to please, to give her whatever she’d like, and he hopes the tone of his voice belies that. (He is half-hoping she would like physical pleasures, so his hands never have to part from her, so he can watch her body react to his touch...he would not ask for anything in return.)

She shakes her head, wet hair and robe clinging to his skin, and says, “Let me take care of you.”

“I, uh...what?” This catches him off guard, flusters him. (He flusters too easily sometimes.) He can feel his skin heating again, and not from the bath, all the way down his neck to his shoulders. Anything else, perhaps, he expected. “I’m fine, really, you don’t need to.”

“I want to. You deserve to be cared for too.”

He’s been having trouble reconciling that recently. The past is riddled with physical experiences that were first good, then bad, and then with the curse he got to enjoy the pain and go looking for it, and over the years his self-worth has slowly been whittled away to almost nothing. He knows this, and sighs. “Well, alright, but -”

Quick as lightning, Esme leans up and kisses him, and he can’t finish the sentence which is probably a good thing, and it slowly dies in his throat as the thought slowly dies in his brain and his eyes drift closed. He finds she’s in his lap, and he’s kissing back with his arms wrapped around her - for the physical touch, yes (and goodness knows he’s hungry for it, starving), but also because _safe, here, with me - protected_.

(When did that thought change? He doesn’t know.)

Her lips pull away, and he opens his eyes and smiles, a little rueful. “Sorry. Old habits die hard, I suppose.” He runs his hands down her sides, down to her hips -

But she disentangles herself, being careful not to slosh the water, and goes to the bath tray, poking her nose into every bottle much as he did and making faces at some of them. Eventually she holds one out shaped like a medicine bottle, which he’d ignored. “Smell.” He leans forward to meet her outstretched arm, and sniffs - sandalwood.

She smiles to herself. “It suits you,” then starts shaking a thick shampoo into her palm. “Come here. Let me wash your hair.”

He likes the sound of that very much.

He moves to her quickly enough to splash water out of the bath, and she holds her hands aloft with a half-delighted, half-surprised squeal. “Ilya! Careful!”

He peppers Esme's face with kisses, and she laughs. It is not at all a pretty, sexy laugh, but he likes ( _loves_ ) it just the same. His eyes track her every move, eager, as she sets the bottle back on the crowded tray with a _click_. 

He is too tall, sits too far out of the water on the bench seat, so Esme pushes him out farther with her free hand. Her heels press into his belly and he settles back against the bench, upper arms resting just above her knees. “Close your eyes.” He does, without hesitation, and a few moments later feels her fingers in his hair, gently running through the wet curls and massaging his scalp.

His whole head feels so relaxed he cannot even muster a smile, but he can muster up some charm. “I must have run out of earthly delights, because this is heavenly, my dear.”

There is nothing to say, then, for a little while. Esme pauses, resumes her ministrations with more sandalwood shampoo. He has thick hair, often fought with it when he was younger, and eventually gave up trying to tame it, and understands. A thought strikes him. “Is this okay? Should I move, am I hurting you?”

“No, it’s perfect.” This must be equally relaxing for her, because her voice is soft and far-away sounding. Julian leans back a little more, and turns his head to watch her hair float in the water, notices as if for the first time the black and gold of the robes clinging to their bodies -

“Don’t do that, you’ll get soap in your eyes.” A bit chiding this time, fingers turning his face away. He closes them again, and wipes away a rivulet of shampoo with the heel of his hand.

“Sorry. Are you sure this is good?”

Gentle again, and he will never get tired of hearing her voice that way. Genuine - he can tell every word comes from her heart. “You’re doing amazing, letting me do this for you. I mean it.”

“Am I? I, um. Okay, then.” He is pleased by the praise; his ears are warm. He feels handfuls of water wash through his hair and down his face, taking the soap away with them. Over the years, he’s become used to harsh barbs, bravado, blows, tough exteriors, squabbles...but with this girl, not much older than his sister, he would happily leave those things (or most of them, anyway) behind.

“You’ve been working so hard,” and her hands slide up his broad back, find the place along his shoulders where the thick muscles bunch up with stress, and - most unbelievable of all her kindnesses so far - begin to knead. “You deserve to relax, too.” He winces at first - how long has that tension been there? - but ever so slowly, it begins to unwind.

He cannot stop himself from letting out a groan and tipping his head back, and is not ashamed. _Heavenly_ \- her touch is magic, in more ways than one. “It never feels like enough,” Julian hears himself say, a sentiment pulled out of him like an elusive fish from the depths of the sea, and he is glad to see it emerge into the light.

Esme’s hands leave his skin and reach for something in front of him, tuck a large blossom into the hair behind his ear. “It’s enough,” and she kisses the side of his neck where it meets his jaw; her lips linger there. “You are enough.”

He opens his eyes. The room is swimming in steam, but he turns around and her face is not a foot from his, unobscured by haze and bright with affection. Steely blue-grey eyes like an oncoming storm over the ocean, long raven hair floating in the water around them, skin marked by sunlight's kisses - a siren, wrapped in sheer black and gold, his disaster and salvation at the same time.

 _I love you_ , he thinks but doesn’t say, and knows he would have it no other way.

“Esmeralda...thank you.” He lifts himself up onto the bench seat next to her and pulls her into his arms, into his lap, kisses her soundly and holds her close. The hair at the back of her head is dry, and he rests a hand there, the hand marked so evilly by stick and ink to brand him as a murderer. He knows that mark holds no influence over him anymore.

Her breasts press against him as she draws breath and sighs, volumes of calm and happiness contained within. She tucks her head into his chest again, closes her eyes, wraps her arms about his waist. “Of course, Ilya,” and he is at peace, at home.

Weeks later, this memory comes to mind, and his world changes in an instant.

He was found by his investigators in the city, the Halsan capital, half-mad from Esme’s sudden vanishing. (He was happy to travel with her, wherever she’d like. The view was not new to him - craggy peaks, pine forests, fields that would cover with snow when winter came back, and then she had disappeared from it in the night, made it that much less picturesque.) They had borne him to the palace at the center of the city, looking for information, on his side, in time for the king’s announcement of his daughter’s return. The four of them had been invited into the palace, their company requested by the princess herself - a privilege of the highest order, he knew.

When he had heard there was a bath house, he had lit up, forgotten his troubles for a moment or two, and asked to go. Ingrid, the princess’ personal servant, had taken it in stride, shepherded them to a circular wooden building on the edge of the grounds. “The king had his bath house built on top of a hot spring,” she had said, and he had smiled. Like Nevivon (only his hometown had no king).

And now - Julian is standing at the door, staring at a girl with steely blue-gray eyes like a storm over the ocean, her long black hair pooling in the water, and he feels slapped in the face, stunned. The shining, beautiful memory of Esme in the Countess’ baths is so strikingly the same that he doesn’t have to think to _know_. He had lost his siren, and now, in the king of Halsa’s bath house, she is found, calling to him again. Would that he could answer, but, oh, _now_ he can see the danger waiting.

Julian Devorak’s heart belongs to a siren, and he must keep his wits about him.

**Author's Note:**

> I refuse to talk about the ending but I will say that it's a jump forward to post-canon. Halsa is the largest country in my DND campaign world, and is a peaceful Norse kingdom.
> 
> Also the ending feels rushed and I don't really like it but whatever I guess, it'll get its own post eventually.


End file.
